


Fight Me, I'm Irish

by ClaraxBarton



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: BFF5eva Steve and Bucky, M/M, Mandatory Fun Day, MandatoryFunDay, St. Patrick's Day, winterhawk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-27 19:36:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18198446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: St. Patrick's Day goes exactly as Bucky thought it would, except for the part where it doesn't.A very short thing for tumblr's Mandatory Fun Day prompt.





	Fight Me, I'm Irish

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luvsanime02](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luvsanime02/gifts).



> As always, thank you to Ro for beta reading and to CB for hand holding.  
> Also, it's not the 200th thing I had planned on doing, but, well, my brain and time conspired against me. All the same, this is for you Ro, because hell, we both know I'd have stopped writing YEARS ago if not for you. Thank you for everything.
> 
> \---  
> \---  
> \---  
> \---

It was after two in the morning when Bucky opened his door.

 

There had been no knock, but after blinking awake in the dark, alone and cold in his bed, to the sound of low voices and stumbling feet in the hall outside of his apartment, Bucky had known that whoever was on the other side of his door was likely to require assistance. All the same, he had waited five minutes, had gotten up and pulled on pants and filled up a glass with water and hunted down aspirin and put together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and arranged the supplies on the kitchen counter.

 

And then he opened his door.

 

Standing on the other side were, without a doubt, two of the dumbest, prettiest, most irritating blond-haired assholes known to mankind. It was just Bucky’s shit luck that he had a  _ type _ , and that this was it.

 

Two pairs of blue eyes looked at him, taking in his unimpressed face and crossed arms and sleep-mussed hair.

 

Steve Rogers had been the first boy Bucky ever kissed, the first boy he ever loved, the first- the first a lot of things. And while the love Bucky felt for Steve had changed, over the years, had shaped itself into something that wasn’t some kind of all-consuming passionate thing that it had once been, it was still no less intense and no less important to him. Loving Steve Rogers had felt like the right thing since the day they met, and Bucky couldn’t imagine being in a world that didn’t have him in it, that didn’t have  _ them _ loving each other in it.

 

Clint Barton, on the other hand, wasn’t someone Bucky had ever, in a thousand years, imagined himself falling for. For one thing, he was a former Marine sniper, and he and Bucky had first met back when Bucky and Steve were still in the Army, and their first exchange of words had included a lot of very non-sexual ‘fuck yous’, and they had both ended up with bruised knuckles and bloody faces. For another thing, he was so much like Steve ‘I’m not worth dying for, but I will lay down my life for every stranger, no matter what’ Rogers that there was no way Bucky was dumb enough to get involved with  _ two _ such idiots. 

 

Turned out, Bucky was dumb enough.

 

It took five years - took them both getting discharged, Bucky after losing an arm and Clint after losing the will to pull the trigger for another enlistment; took them being re-introduced via Natasha, who seemed to know everyone, and who swore to this day that she didn’t meddle in her friends’ love lives despite the fact that Bucky didn’t know a single one of her friends that hadn’t been set up on at least three blind dates by her; took a one-night stand and then six months of drunken booty calls before they could stand to actually go on a proper date with each other.

 

But here they were, two years of dating and nearly six months of living together later, and Bucky was standing in his apartment glaring at his best friend and his boyfriend while they grinned back at him with their dumb, pretty faces and stupid, blue eyes.

 

They were both messes - clothes and hair disheveled, faces bruised and knuckles even worse off.

 

It was, in a small way, maybe Bucky’s fault. He had, after all, been the one to laugh at Steve’s  _ Kiss Me, I’m Irish  _ shirt last St. Patrick’s Day and suggest that Steve get one that said  _ Fight Me, I’m Irish _ instead. And of course Clint had heard Bucky say that. And of course Clint had gotten Steve the shirt. And, of course, Steve had gotten Clint one to match.

 

So, really, Bucky had only himself to blame now that it was St. Patrick’s Day - or two hours after the end of it - and he had two drunk, broken blond idiots on his doorstep.

 

“You realize you have a key, right?” he asked.

 

They looked at each other, and then offered nearly identical sheepish grins to Bucky.

 

“Lost my keys in the river,” Clint shrugged.

 

“Forgot I had a key,” Steve mumbled, patting at his pockets until he located his keys, and then he held up the key ring, apparently for no reason whatsoever.

 

Bucky turned away from him and narrowed his eyes at Clint.

 

“You  _ lost _ your keys in the river,” he repeated.

 

Clint grinned at him.

 

It was his ‘I know I’m fucking stupid, but don’t you remember how good I am at rim jobs and foot massages’ smile. 

 

Bucky sighed and moved to one side, allowing Clint into the apartment.

 

Steve looked a little forlorn.

 

“You need to crash here, or are you going to go home and beg Sam’s forgiveness?” Bucky asked him.

 

Steve looked like he was genuinely torn.

 

Bucky rolled his eyes and pulled him into a hug.

 

“Go home, punk. Sam knows you’re an idiot, and he still puts up with you anyway.”

 

“Puts up with you too,” Steve mumbled into Bucky’s shirt.

 

Steve smelled like sweat and beer and smoke. It was not Bucky’s favorite combination.

 

He shoved Steve away, and Steve gave him a dopey, drunk grin.

 

Bucky shut the door in his face.

 

Clint was in the kitchen, leaning against the fridge - eyes closed, half-eaten sandwich in one hand, and a glass of water in the other. The aspirin was nowhere in sight.

 

“How many fights did you get into?” Bucky asked him.

 

“Seven,” Clint said after taking another bite of the sandwich. “No, eight. There was that guy on the subway.”

 

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky muttered. He supposed he should really be grateful that neither he nor Sam had had to go and bail their asses out of jail. 

 

Bucky stepped into Clint’s space, pressed a kiss to his forehead, and then urged him to drink more water.

 

Clint complied, and then opened his eyes. He looked at Bucky, eyes a little glazed, definitely drunk and exhausted.

 

“You know I’m the luckiest guy in the world, right?” Clint asked.

 

Bucky lifted his eyebrows.

 

Clint gestured with the sandwich and the water - some kind of broad, sweeping motion that was maybe supposed to encompass the apartment. Maybe all of Brooklyn.

 

“Coulda died a thousand times before I met you. Coulda died a hundred since. But, instead, I’m here with you, and that makes me the luckiest guy in the world.”

 

Clint, contrary to all of Bucky’s expectations, turned deeply serious and philosophical when drunk. Sure, give him three beers and he became as handsy and goofy as Steve when Steve had had seven beers, but give  _ Clint _ seven beers, and for the time it took him to either sober up or pass out after that, he was quietly but sincerely analyzing his life choices and those of the people he cared most about.

 

“So you celebrated that realization by getting into eight fights?” Bucky asked, trying to deflect, because he didn’t mind this version of Clint, he genuinely didn’t mind any version of Clint - not even the whiny man-baby sick version of him when Clint was struck down with a cold once a year - but he knew Clint almost always felt embarrassed after the fact when he took this kind of turn.

 

“Stopping eight fights,” Clint corrected, and then finished off the sandwich. “Steve started them.”

 

That sure as hell sounded right.

 

Bucky snorted a laugh and shook his head.

 

Clint finished off the water and put the glass in the sink. He turned back to Bucky and reached out to tuck his fingers into the waist of Bucky’s pants, and used that as leverage to pull him close.

 

“I mean it,” Clint said once he had his arms around Bucky’s back and their noses were brushing together. “Luckiest guy in the world.”

 

Bucky kissed him - he had to.

 

“Second luckiest. I’m the guy who’s got you, after all.”

 

-o-


End file.
